Watch Eric Clapton Cover Prince's "Purple Rain" At London Concert

posted by Andrew Magnotta @AndrewMagnotta -
May 14, 2019

Eric Clapton paid tribute to a pair of legends during his encore at London's Royal Albert Hall on Monday.

The guitar icon and his band began the set with a cover of "Que Sera Sera" in an apparent tribute to late-singer and actress Doris Day, who passed away earlier in the day at age 97. The band then launched into the opening bars of Prince's classic ballad, "Purple Rain," as the crowd shrieked in approval.

Clapton has been a longtime fan of Prince, singing his praises on many occasions and even comparing the late-Purple One to Jimi Hendrix.

After Prince's death in 2016, Clapton said he took the news extremely hard. He went on to call the singer and multi-instrumentalist a "true genius and a huge inspiration for me." The song "Holy Mother" from Clapton's 1986 album, August, was inspired by Prince, he said.

Old Slowhand also credited Prince's music with showing him a way out of the depression in which he was mired in the '80s.

"In the middle of my depression, and the dreadful state of the music culture at that time, [Prince] gave me hope," Clapton wrote in 2016. "He was like a light in the darkness."